Re: [PHP-GTK-DEV] A new way for creating extensions

Hey, this looks interesting!

I'm catching up on older mail, so I just now saw this. Looks like this 
could be a great replacement for ext_skel and more. I'll take a closer 
look in a bit.

-Andrei

Keisial wrote:
> I recently had the need to create a php-gtk extension, and what i found 
> wasn't too pleasant.
> Most code (gen_*.c) is autogenerated from the defs file by 
> generator/generator.php. Which itself is made by running h2def.py on the 
> C header. Well, it turns out generator/h2def.py is outdated. And by 
> outdated i mean that generator/generator.php *won't be able to process 
> that file*. Oops.
> The solution is using the newer one maintained by the pygtk folks at 
> http://svn.gnome.org/svn/pygobject/trunk/codegen
> It also has improvements such as no longer needing to edit the defs file 
> in order to specify which is the constructor.
> 
> 
> Where to get the other files an extension needs? Well, there's a 
> skeleton extension precisely for a basis for that, right? Wrong! It is 
> also outdated. php_skeleton_register_constants() doesn't expect a 
> module_number, but a const char* Using it you get a nice sigsegv on 
> runtime.
> 
> Finally, there's ext_skel, a shell script to copy the skeleton dir to 
> the widget's and avoid you the trouble or replacing each skeleton 
> occurrence by the new widget's name. It's also broken, although this may 
> be just in my setup.
> 
> 
> So, you end up copying one of the working widgets and changing the name 
> in lots of places, with different capitalizations. You invariably forget 
> some, and have to try compiling several times until you get it right. As 
> Bob said when i asked how to create php-gtk extensions, "it is just not 
> very fun to do".
> That labour would better be achieved by a script, and so i went into 
> making it.
> 
> This new script resides in generator/ext_gen.php and hooks into the 
> build process, based on ext_data.php on each extension folder. You can 
> use it once to generate the files which you will then customize, or 
> leave them autogenerate on each build. This point is specially 
> interesting because most extensions haven't changed since they were 
> created by copy & replace, and provides a single point of improvement 
> into the system. Also, by keeping the generator in use by a number of 
> extensions, it is guaranteed to be kept up-to-date.
> 
> Each extension defines a few parameters into the file ext_data.php, and 
> can have most its files autogenerated. The new generated scripts are 
> (expected to be) equivalent to the old ones. In fact, much of it is the 
> same code, to make a cvs diff as smaller as possible. However, there's a 
> number of improvements:
> -grep | sed process replaced by just a sed
> -gen_*.h created a bit more independed from gen_*.c
> -Makefiles actions in one line broken on several.
> -gen_*.h will include the prototypes of the exported functions of 
> gen_*.c, which would have warned the issue of the register_constants() 
> parameter type at compile time.
> -php_*.h will include gen_*.h instead of placing the prototypes.
> -Minor differences on text presented to the user, usually just of 
> capitalization (eg. 'Disable libglade support' vs 'Disable libGlade 
> support').
> 
> 
> Transitioned extensions: extra, html, libglade, libsexy
> Unchanged: gtk+ (lots of special stuff), mozembed (three different 
> modules), scintilla (several customizations), spell (standalone)
> I have done my best to ensure it doesn't break anything, but any 
> comments are welcome. You can also reach me at #php-gtk. The extensions 
> still build fine on Linux with the patch. On windows, it still fails, as 
> it did without it, so SNAFU.
> 
> Added files:
> extra/ext_data.php
> html/ext_data.php
> libglade/ext_data.php
> libsexy/ext_data.php
> generator/ext_gen.php
> 
> Modified:
> win32/buildconf.js
> build2/build.mk
> 
> Removed:
> generator/h2def.py
> ext/ext_skel
> ext/skeleton/* [keep skeleton.overrides?]
> 
> Deprecated:
> extra/config.m4,config.w32,Makefile.frag,php_gtkextra.c,php_gtkextra.h
> html/config.m4,config.w32,Makefile.frag,php_html.c,php_html.h
> libglade/config.m4,config.w32,Makefile.frag,php_libglade.c,php_libglade.h
> libsexy/config.m4,config.w32,Makefile.frag,php_libsexy.c,php_libsexy.h
> 
> Renamed (apply manually):
> mv extra/gtkextra.defs extra/extra.defs
> mv extra/gtkextra.overrides extra/extra.overrides
> mv libsexy/sexy.overrides libsexy/libsexy.overrides
> mv libsexy/sexy.defs libsexy/libsexy.defs
> 
> Opinions?
>